Asia

On the morning of August 26, 2026, a devastating flash flood of rock and ice thundered from a high Himalayan mountain through Nepal’s valleys, sweeping away homes, villages and bridges.

At least 1,400 people were killed and more than 5,000 people remain missing.

It was the latest in a series of natural disasters that have battered Nepal in recent years as climate change accelerates.

This programme follows the rescuers risking their lives to search for the missing and those providing aid and refuge for traumatised children and families.

101 East reveals Nepal’s efforts to save lives and rebuild communities after a deadly natural disaster.

The unnamed individual will be the first foreign national to visit China’s space station as part of Shenzhou-24 mission.

China’s Manned Space Agency has selected a Pakistani astronaut as a payload specialist for its upcoming Shenzhou-24 mission, making the unnamed individual the first foreign national to visit the country’s space station.

The Pakistani astronaut would join China’s Shenzhou-24 mission, as part of bilateral cooperation under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese state media reported on Saturday.

China has not identified the astronaut nor given a date of departure, but the mission is expected to take place by the end of the year.

Pakistani pilots Zeeshan Ali and Khurram Daud spent months training at the China Astronaut Research and Training Center in Beijing for a mission.

Last February, Pakistan and China, longstanding strategic and diplomatic partners, entered into an agreement, establishing a Chinese government-led programme to train Pakistani astronauts. China is Pakistan’s largest trading partner and a key foreign investor.

The China National Space Administration will also deploy Jinnah-1, Pakistan’s inaugural lunar rover. Weighing 35kg (77lb) and fitted with specialised scientific equipment, the rover is tasked with analysing plasma behaviour, radiation, and the composition of lunar soil.

The training programme includes practical operational exercises and intensive Chinese language lessons to prepare the candidates for the mission.

Beijing’s China Central Television reported that after completing a short-term in-orbit flight, the astronauts would return to Earth on board the Shenzhou-23 spacecraft.

China invested heavily in its space programme in recent years – catching up with its main rival, the United States – and aims to land astronauts on the Moon by 2030.

The US, Russia, and China are also racing to build nuclear reactors on the Moon. While the US space agency, NASA, announced plans to develop a nuclear reactor on the Moon by the end of 2030, Russia has been working with China and aims to do the same by 2036.

The reactors will be needed to power the mining of frozen water trapped deep in the moon’s craters, which scientists believe could supply drinking water, air, and rocket fuel for future bases. The reactors would also provide power for lunar bases.

Ritu Pant always made sure that her merchant navy officer husband told her two things before departing on an assignment.

“I always noted the details and the name of his ship and his emergency contact details in case of a crisis,” says Ritu, who is based in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand.

That’s what she did on April 25, when her husband Ajay left Paradip Port in the state of Odisha on board the MT Smyrtos, a crude oil tanker. Her husband had been a sailor for 18 years, and spent six or seven months a year at sea. But growing threats to seamen – amid the wars in the Middle East and between Russia and Ukraine, and from pirates roaming the high seas – had increased her jitters in recent years.

Yet it was through a social media post that she learned in mid-June that the ship had been captured. Not by pirates, but by the British armed forces, because the MT Smyrtos is under Western sanctions for allegedly working as part of Russia’s shadow fleet, a network of vessels that help Moscow evade United States and European economic restrictions to continue to sell oil and gas, amid the war on Ukraine.

Now Ajay Pant faces charges of flouting United Kingdom sanctions against Russia by commandeering the ship. It’s the first known instance when a European nation has kept a ship captain under arrest on such grounds, and could set a worrying precedent, say lawyers and groups advocating for the rights of seafarers. “This is a unique case,” said Tony Patten, the UK representative at the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), an organisation that works for the rights of seafarers.

Other European countries have also taken over ships that they accuse of violating sanctions against Russia, but while they’ve kept the vessels, they have so far let the sailors go. In March this year, a captain of a suspected Russian shadow fleet was prosecuted in absentia by a French court. In another case from Finland, a court dismissed charges against the captain of a Russian oil tanker accused of damaging undersea cables in the Baltic Sea on account of lack of jurisdiction. In other cases, European nations have set commercial sailors free with fines.

By contrast, Ajay faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

The case has also underlined a growing tension between maritime traffic through international waters – the Smyrtos was not in British territorial waters when it was captured – and the enforcement by countries of sanctions that are not approved by the United Nations.

‘Situation of the sea was very bad’

The open seas have always been dangerous, but the risks have mounted as wars and piracy have turned ships and their crew into active targets for militaries and mercenaries alike.

At least 24 seafarers have been killed in the Strait of Hormuz since the US and Israel launched their war on Iran in February. More than 120 commercial ships and tankers have been attacked in this period in the waterway, which used to transport a fifth of the world’s energy supplies before the start of the war.

The death toll in the Black Sea is even grimmer: At least 40 sailors have been killed in more than 570 attacks on vessels there. Piracy off the coast of Somalia has resurged, too.

For Ritu Pant, all of that meant increased insecurity each time her husband went on a ship.“I was quite worried,” she said, describing her thoughts while Ajay was at sea. “When I talked to Ajay, I would tell him that you need to keep in touch always; you need to tell me that you’re fine and everything is safe around because the situation of the sea was very bad.”

But it was not uncommon for her to not hear from her husband for days, due to network disruptions at sea. So Ritu would track updates of her husband’s ship online, a practice that has become increasingly common among families of sailors at sea.

On June 14, the MT Smyrtos was chugging through the English Channel when the Royal Marines Commandos intercepted it, in what was a first-of-its-kind operation authorised by then British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

At the time, the ship was in international waters, outside the territorial jurisdiction of the UK. Yet Chinook, Merlin Mk4 and Wildcat helicopters from the Maritime Air Group; a Royal Air Force P-8A Poseidon Maritime Patrol Aircraft; a frigate; and a mine countermeasures ship participated in the military operation to take control of the vessel, according to the British Ministry of Defence.

The ship was carrying oil from Russia and was on track to pass through the Suez Canal on its way to India, its destination.

“This successful operation delivers yet another blow to Russia and reminds those fueling Putin’s war in Ukraine that we will not let them hide,” Starmer said in a post on X.

What followed was equally unprecedented; charges of allegedly breaching Russian sanctions were brought against Ajay, who has since been in detention in the UK. After an initial court hearing, his bail was denied.

‘Criminalisation of seafarers’

Enforcement of maritime sanctions brought against Russia after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has been tenuous at best, which makes the Smyrtos case “very unique”, said David Hammond, a lawyer and founder of Human Rights At Sea, a nonprofit and UN-accredited organisation advocating for the rights of people living, working, transiting and operating at sea.

“It is unique in terms of the interception and the interdiction of a vessel that had been sanctioned, having passed through the English Channel as an international transit corridor. It’s, in my understanding, not happened before,” he said.

On the one hand, Hammond explained, the outcome of the case will determine how coastal states enforce sanctions against vessels. But, he said, it also underscores the risks of “criminalisation of seafarers”.

Hammond said Ajay Pant’s case was part of a broader pattern of “shipping crews finding themselves in a position where they are arrested for many crimes, such as trafficking or movement of drugs that they’re not even aware of having been put on board the ship”.

He cited the example of Ali Albokhari, a Finnish-Syrian chief mate on a cargo ship, who was detained by Turkish authorities in 2023 after 137kg (302lb) of cocaine was found on board.

Patten of the ITF echoed similar sentiments. “Our stance is that seafarers being penalised automatically when something like this happens isn’t fair. We would always uphold the right of the seafarer,” he said.

Hammond said Ajay’s case was especially without parallel. “In the case of the Smyrtos,  it could be argued that Captain Pant is being criminalised for simply doing his job,” he said, adding that the direction in which the British courts rule will set a new precedent for masters’ accountability over movement of sanctioned goods.

The case, Hammond added, “is a perfect storm in a global storm of impunity; who is accountable and who enforces accountability”.

“And the unintended consequences of which are yet to be seen,” he warned.

‘Horrible year at sea’

The case also raises wider concerns, Hammond said, about how shipping companies and the countries vessels traverse often treat seafarers. “Undeniably, seafarers are seen as disposable assets,” he said, “disposable because they can be easily replaced but concurrently, as assets for assuring continuous global movement of goods by sea.”

The killings in the Strait of Hormuz and the Black Sea have underscored that sense among sailors and their families – that the lives of those who keep the global economy moving are seen as disposable by those in power.

In a statement shared with Al Jazeera, the International Maritime Organization confirmed at least 66 sailors were killed in various conflicts this year, and hundreds of others injured. Many sailors are also still missing and feared to be dead. “It has been a horrible year for people at sea,” Patten said. “Problems have always existed, but conflicts and geopolitical change have certainly heightened them.”

Ajay Pant’s case also shines new light on a growing number of instances where navies have gone outside their territorial waters to seize tankers that they claim are violating their domestic sanctions regimes.

Since February, when the US and Israel launched their war on Iran, US forces have intercepted and captured several cargo ships in the Indian Ocean. These vessels were seized not just far from US territorial waters but also far from the theatre of their war, on accusations that they were helping Iran evade US sanctions.

The US and the UK argue that they are acting within the bounds of international law.

The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea permits a warship to visit a cargo ship to verify its flag where there are reasonable grounds to suspect the vessel is without nationality. The British Defence Ministry, in its statement after the seizure of the Smyrtos, said that if a vessel is determined to be stateless, the UK can exercise criminal and maritime enforcement powers under its domestic Policing and Crime Act.

The Smyrtos, like many ships that are accused of belonging to Russia’s “shadow fleet”, has frequently changed its flag. The ship had once previously been registered in The Gambia, and then adopted a Cameroon flag in December 2025. When it departed from a Russian port, it had a Cameroonian flag, but Lloyd’s List Intelligence reported that the ship had been removed from Cameroon’s register earlier, in June. It is owned by a Chinese company.

According to the British Defence Ministry, Russia sells about 75 percent of its oil using such shadow tankers.

But whether militaries have the right to enforce their domestic sanctions and laws in international waters against individuals and vessels that are not registered in their territory remains a contested question in international law.

The capture of such vessels raises “a much bigger issue” of “the freedom of navigation at sea”, said Hammond.

To Ajay’s family and those advocating for him, it also raises a more human question: If a cargo ship captain passing through international waters can be captured and tried by nations for allegedly violating their domestic laws, is any sailor safe?

Anchored with hope

That’s a question that Ritu has lived with in the past few months, forcing the former school principal into advocacy not just for her husband’s release, but for seafarer rights globally.

“Ajay’s case goes beyond just our family, and could be a landmark judgement for seafarers worldwide,” she said. “It raises the fundamental question of whether a master of a ship can be criminalised for decisions that are beyond his authority, knowledge or control.”

The journey has been a difficult one, she said.

“Ajay was the primary breadwinner of his family, and I have also been forced to give up my work to focus on this case,” the mother of an eight-year-old and a one-year-old said.

“He has also been a caregiver to his elderly parents,” she added, saying that for the first few days after the arrest, she kept the news from them, worried for their health. “I wouldn’t allow the daily newspaper in the house and stopped sending my older daughter to school, afraid that someone would say something hurtful to her.”

Eventually, Ritu informed the family and prepared them for the struggles ahead.

“The hardest part is having to do this across continents. We have only spoken to him over short calls, and he has had no personal visitors since I went to meet him in August,” she said. “I don’t want him to feel that he has been forgotten.”

But despite the hardships, she remains hopeful, as support has poured in from the global seafarers community. “When I started posting on social media, I received so many messages from families and wives of sailors,” she said. “Every seafarer’s family I’ve talked to relates to this. So many sailors are getting targeted right now in conflict at sea; they are being made scapegoats.”

Now, she’s preparing for Ajay’s upcoming trial. “I have to bring him back home,” she said. “For his family, but also because no seafarer should be treated in this way.”

A tech stock rout that began overnight in the United States has persisted in Asian trading.

Market authorities in South Korea paused trading on Friday as prices plunged across the region. Global markets have been rattled by a sharp fall in the trading price of tech stocks, which is driven by fears that the Democrats’ victory in the US midterm elections will increase regulatory scrutiny of AI and slow the country’s data centre build-out.

Japan’s Nikkei index slumped 6 percent, its deepest one-day drop since April 2025. Indices in South Korea and Taiwan plunged more than 8 percent after the opening bell, before cutting losses as authorities scrambled to stem the selling.

Wall Street’s volatility “fear gauge” soared overnight on Thursday and the tech-focused Nasdaq sank 5.5 percent, wiping $3 trillion off S&P 500 firms, as investors fretted that the Democrats could put the brakes on the AI boom being encouraged by President Donald Trump.

“It was a brutal morning for many investors here in Asia. We saw that the AI sell-off continues here across many countries,” Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu reported from Beijing.

“Some of those major markets have fortunately recovered some of those losses, but all of them are still clearly in the red,” she said.

Analysts say the political jitters are hitting an AI trade already on shaky footing due to worries about returns on massive spending on related infrastructure.

“The selloff shows that AI stock prices had been built on rosy illusions about the future, and now that illusion is gone,” Dong Baozhen, chairman of asset manager Lingtong Shengtai, told the Reuters news agency.

“The US stock market has been the standard-bearer and backbone of the global AI bull run. Now that backbone has snapped. Can AI bull markets elsewhere hold up on their own?”

Authorities step in

Markets cut some of their losses by the time Asian markets closed, as authorities worked to stem the panic.

Trading on South Korea’s Kospi market was temporarily halted amid the sharp slide. Finance Minister Lee Hyoung-il also eased rules on retail investors’ leveraged investments.

In China, state entities stepped in to buy up equities in a bid to stabilise the market, said Al Jazeera’s Yu.

The Taiwan stock market closed down 4.5 percent, recovering somewhat from its early morning slump. For the week, the index clocked a 12.2 percent decline, its biggest since 1991, LSEG data showed.

The government of the island state, a key producer of chips, sought to talk up the prospects for the sector.

Demand ⁠for emerging technologies like AI, ⁠high-performance computing and ⁠cloud services is expected to keep expanding, driving ‌demand for tech companies, the economy ministry said in a statement issued on Friday.

Korean AI chipmakers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix fell nearly 6 percent and 9.4 percent respectively, cutting steep losses from earlier. TSMC fell as much as 8.5 percent in Taiwan, before closing down 4.7 percent.

In Japan, Kioxia plunged 11 percent while AI investor SoftBank Group slid 11 percent.

New regulations

The selling indicates investors are starting to factor in increased opposition to data centres. Analysts say markets have yet to fully consider the cost such building work has imposed on communities.

Toby Walsh, the chief scientist for the AI Institute at Australia’s University of New South Wales, said he expected new regulations on data centres in many countries, including the US, Australia and the United Kingdom.

“The developers were building them in a way that wasn’t actually getting social licence,” Walsh told Al Jazeera.

“They were building them in places where they didn’t need to build. You don’t have to build data centres in urban areas. You can build them in the middle of nowhere.

“I think it’s actually for the good of the tech industry in the United States that this has happened,” he added. “We’re spending money a bit too quickly. And maybe this is the way to let that bubble deflate in a manageable way.”

Iran has exempted ships from India, China, Iraq and Qatar from its Strait of Hormuz restrictions, a senior Iranian lawmaker said on Tuesday.

“Ships from these countries pass freely, and the Americans do not intercept them either,” Amir Hayat Moqaddam, deputy chairman of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, told the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA).

Iran effectively shut the strait early in the US-Israel war on Iran, which began on February 28, and the United States reimposed a naval blockade on Iran’s southern ports in July.

So why have these four countries been granted passage through the critical strait, and can their ships really sail freely while the blockade remains in place?

What does Iran get in return for letting ships pass?

It will receive medicine from India and political backing from China, according to Hayat Moqaddam. Iran already receives diplomatic support from Qatar, which is leading mediation efforts to end the US-Israel war on Iran.

Hayat Moqaddam said Tehran will also collect transit fees from Indian and Chinese ships, while Qatari vessels pass free. He did not say whether Iraqi ships will pay a toll.

“Whatever the lawmaker says is the rationale – the big question is if it works and, if yes, to what extent?” Rouzbeh Parsi, an Iran analyst and affiliated researcher at Lund University’s Department of History and Human Rights Studies, told Al Jazeera.

“Iran has been under sanctions for a very long time, so bartering and quid pro quos in trade are nothing new,” he said. The difference now, he added, is that “it’s about poking holes in an embargo and getting crucial goods/services in and out”.

Nader Hashemi, an associate professor of Middle East politics at Georgetown University, said that “most likely Iran is charging a transit fee or a percentage of the cargo value to allow those ships to go through without being harassed”.

“It’s a clever move by Tehran for several reasons,” Wolfgang Pusztai, a security and defence analyst and Austria’s former defence attache to Libya, told Al Jazeera.

“If successful, this move will generate significant revenue for Iran, as China is by far the largest purchaser of Iranian crude oil, buying nearly 90 percent of Iran’s total oil exports,” he said.

By including Qatar, with its many liquefied natural gas (LNG) buyers, and India, Iran is also “trying to undermine acceptance” of Washington’s strategy in the conflict, especially as it charges Qatar no tolls, he added.

Why does it matter to these four countries?

All four are highly dependent on the Strait of Hormuz for exports.

Of the 10.23 million barrels a day of Gulf crude that passed through the strait in October, about 42 percent went to China and 13 percent to India, Muyu Xu, a senior crude oil analyst at the analytics firm Kpler, told Al Jazeera.

“China is the country most able to cross US interests. The question is whether Beijing considers it worth the potential political cost,” Parsi said.

Asia is particularly reliant on Gulf oil and gas usually shipped out via Hormuz. Countries there have much to offer in return for allowing ships to pass.

“For India, the shutdown of oil from the Gulf has been a great loss – and it is a big producer of the pharmaceuticals that Iran cannot manufacture itself,” he said.

Qatar, which is mediating between Washington and Tehran, shipped no LNG through the strait in August, but managed 1.8 million tonnes in October, Xu said.

Its crude transits fell over the same period, from 517,000 barrels a day to 193,000, while Iraq’s rose from 1.69 million to 2.65 million.

Kpler has been unable to trace the origin of up to two million barrels a day of Middle Eastern crude, so both countries’ flows may be higher, Xu said.

“India and Qatar have closer relationships with DC they need to maintain – while both of them also feel let down by Trump,” Parsi said, adding, “For Qatar, maintaining a relationship with Iran is also vital since it’s an unavoidable neighbour.”

“So for all of them, there are upsides for these exemptions from Iranian restrictions but also political dangers,” he said.

Is this announcement new?

Not entirely.

Iran began letting some vessels from countries it considers friendly pass within weeks of the war starting. And in April, its military command said “brotherly” Iraq was exempt.

With the Iraqi exemption, Iran “probably intends to support the economic recovery” of its western neighbour, a fellow Shia-majority country, Pusztai said.

Will ships be able to get past the US blockade?

That depends on Washington.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) has said the blockade applies to “all vessels of all nations entering or leaving coastal areas or ports in Iran”, while vessels avoiding Iranian ports are not affected.

It has also said humanitarian shipments, including “food and medical supplies essential for the survival of the civilian populations”, can pass after inspection.

But Hayat Moqaddam did not appear to limit the exemptions to ships trading with other Gulf states, Pusztai noted. “If this is really the case, this would also have a significant impact on the other Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia,” he said.

“This could make the continuation of the American naval blockade more difficult and less effective, assuming Washington accepts this Iranian move,” he said. The main change, he added, is that the exemption “would also cover Chinese/Indian ships from/to Iran”, if the US accepts it.

It is also unclear whether “ships of these countries” means the flag a vessel flies, its owner, its operator or some other link, Pusztai said.

Ending the blockade is one of Tehran’s demands before it will commit to broader peace talks with the US, which will include discussions about Iran’s nuclear programme. Qatar-mediated talks currently centre on an Iranian proposal to reopen the strait if the US meets seven conditions, including this and lifting sanctions.

“It seems to be that Iran tries to separate the questions of free passage through the Strait of Hormuz and oil exports from the nuclear question,” Pusztai said, adding, “The American reaction will show if this is successful.”

Will this make a difference to oil markets?

Not much, for now.

“I think they make only limited difference at present,” Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG Group, told Al Jazeera.

“Markets are back to pricing in a peace deal, but if conflict flares up at full tilt, then Iranian commanders may not have time to distinguish their targets,” he said, adding: “At present, the focus remains squarely on the prospects of a broader deal.”

An exemption has not guaranteed safety. On October 30, the Qatari LNG carrier Al Mayeda was struck by “unidentified objects” in the Gulf, said its owner, Qatar Gas Transport Company.

More than 120 commercial ships have been hit in the region since the war began, with October being the worst month, according to data from the International Maritime Organization and United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations.

Parliament’s approval lays the groundwork for further Turkish involvement in Saudi Arabia’s conflict with the Houthis.

Turkiye’s parliament has ratified a defence pact with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan that includes a collective defence clause, committing NATO’s second-largest military to the group’s aid in case of attack.

The ratification on Thursday comes as Riyadh continues to face attacks by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis.

Turkiye first signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement in August and sent it to parliament for ratification last month.

Article 1 of a bill approving the pact was adopted by the Turkish parliament on Wednesday.

But afterwards, Deputy Parliament Speaker Celal Adan adjourned the session until Thursday afternoon, the Anadolu news agency reported.

After parliament returned to session, lawmakers continued to debate the other articles in the pact.

The agreement ultimately passed with 279 votes in favour and 119 against, with 398 of the chamber’s 592 lawmakers taking part in the vote.

The pact contains 16 articles, according to a document submitted to the Turkish parliament, seen by the Reuters news agency.

In Article 1 of the accord, the signatories shall use “all necessary means” to eliminate threats to one another’s territorial integrity. Article 1 can be invoked in case of an attack on any member state.

Once the first article is invoked, the document lays out provisions for what follows.

“In the event one of the parties is subjected to an armed attack or military aggression by another country or group of countries, the parties shall immediately provide assistance to the party under attack, utilising the full range of mutual assistance measures available to them,” says Article 2 of the pact.

This key clause mirrors Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, the document that established the NATO military alliance. NATO’s Article 5 establishes that an attack on one member is treated as an attack on all.

Given that Turkiye is a member of both NATO and the Mecca pact, critics have raised questions about whether the country’s government might face a conflict of interest in allocating its military resources.

Turkish officials, however, have dismissed such concerns as unfounded.

Other articles in the Mecca pact concern a mutual agreement to increase defence industry cooperation and military coordination, with the aim of deterring threats.

Those articles, in part, commit member states to conducting joint training, pursuing technological innovation and sharing logistics and intelligence resources.

The draft approved by Turkish lawmakers commits member countries to the pact for 10 years, after which point they may withdraw.

It also leaves open the possibility of other countries joining, with the approval of the pact’s existing members. Syria’s government has already expressed interest.

Despite Thursday’s parliamentary ratification, it is not a foregone conclusion that Turkish troops would be deployed to Saudi Arabia amid the Houthi attacks.

Experts say any Turkish troop deployment would also require other legislative processes.

Turkiye’s Defence Minister Yasar Guler said in October that the scope of potential support for Saudi Arabia would be determined after ratification.

“We absolutely do not foresee entering into any conflict with the Houthis,” Turkish media reported Guler as saying. Instead, Turkish support “would be to strengthen deterrence”.

Tensions between Saudi Arabia and Yemen had abated somewhat following a 2022 ceasefire. But the Houthis have escalated their attacks on Saudi Arabia in recent months, notably launching a series of deadly strikes on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh.

The region also remains embroiled in the US-Israel war on Iran, which has contributed to cross-border tensions.

On Thursday, Saudi Arabia announced it had intercepted a drone in the region of Medina. Riyadh has accused the Houthis several times of targeting Mecca and Medina, two holy cities in Islam, an accusation the Iran-backed group systematically rejects.

Ten years ago, the Paris Agreement entered into force, binding nearly every country to a shared goal: to hold global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5C (2.7F).

A decade on, the deal has helped drive stronger climate policies and a rapid expansion of clean energy. But emissions remain near record highs, temperatures keep climbing and countries are still far from the cuts needed to keep a 1.5C limit within reach.

In this visual explainer, Al Jazeera looks at what the Paris Agreement set out to do, how far global temperatures have risen since and which countries are driving emissions.

What is the Paris Agreement?

The Paris Agreement is a legally binding climate treaty adopted by 196 parties at the United Nations climate summit in Paris, also known as COP21, on December 12, 2015. It entered into force on November 4, 2016.

The United States, the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter after China, has joined and left the agreement twice. President Donald Trump ordered both withdrawals. The first took effect in November 2020, and President Joe Biden rejoined in February 2021. The US left again in January this year, 12 months after Trump ordered its exit for a second time.

Today, 194 parties, 193 countries and the European Union, belong to the agreement.

Rather than imposing the same cuts on everyone, the agreement asks each government to set its own targets through nationally determined contributions, or NDCs, outlining how it will cut emissions and adapt to climate change.

Countries submit a new, more ambitious NDC every five years, and a Global Stocktake assesses collective progress on the same cycle. The agreement also covers reporting, climate finance and support for developing countries.

The agreement does not force countries to meet their targets. It relies on transparency and international pressure to raise ambition.

How close is the world to breaking the 1.5C limit?

Temperatures have kept rising since the deal was adopted.

In 2024, the planet was more than 1.5C warmer than preindustrial levels across a full calendar year for the first time.

The past three years, 2023 to 2025, were the hottest on record and the first three-year period to average more than 1.5C of warming.

The long-term warming average now stands at about 1.4C, and scientists expect it to surpass 1.5C around the end of this decade.

In October, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said the chance of keeping warming to 1.5C without overshooting it has been lost.

“Every additional fraction of a degree and additional year of warming above 1.5C increases climate impacts and risks, such as the deadly floods, heatwaves and wildfires that have plagued many nations this year,” UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen said.

Still, the outlook is less bleak than it was in 2015.

When the Paris Agreement was signed, existing policies put the world on course for about 3.6C of warming by 2100. According to the Climate Action Tracker, that projection has since fallen to about 2.6C as countries adopted climate policies and clean energy expanded.

Progress has stalled since 2021, however, and current policies still point to far more warming than the agreement promised.

Which countries emit the most?

Carbon dioxide, the main driver of warming, comes mostly from burning coal, oil and natural gas while deforestation removes trees that once absorbed it.

China, the US and India now produce more than half of the world’s annual emissions. China alone emits more than the US, India, Russia and Japan combined although the US has released the most carbon emissions historically.

Investments in clean energy are now almost double those in fossil fuels, but emission cuts have been too slow to keep 1.5C within reach.

The graphic below ranks the biggest emitters in 2024 and shows how their emissions have changed since the agreement took effect in 2016.

China remains by far the largest polluter, and its emissions have kept rising alongside those of India and Indonesia as these fast-growing economies burn more coal to meet soaring power demand. Indonesia has climbed into the top 10, replacing Canada.

Germany, Japan and the US have cut their emissions, largely by replacing coal with renewables and gas. But growth elsewhere has outweighed those cuts, and global emissions are 9 percent higher than in 2016.

Wong, in prison since 2020, was found guilty of colluding with foreign entities in violation of the city’s national security law.

Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong, who has been in prison since 2020, has been jailed for an additional 10 years.

Hong Kong’s High Court found Wong guilty of colluding with foreign entities in violation of the city’s national security law on Thursday.

The sentence comes just two months before he was expected to be released in January 2027.

“The punishment must fit the gravity of ⁠the crime,” High Court Judge William Tam told a packed courtroom while delivering the sentence.

“It is also necessary for the court to express the community’s abhorrence of the defendant’s scheme and acts with others to collude with foreign forces or external elements to endanger national security.”

Wong, now 30, was accused of conspiring with self-exiled activist Nathan Law and others to ask foreign countries, bodies or individuals outside China to impose sanctions or blockades, or engage in other hostile activities against the government.

He pleaded guilty to the charge in September. Tam said he considered a 13-year prison sentence as a starting point but reduced it to 10 because of Wong’s guilty plea and mitigation.

Wong was once the face of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement and has been in jail since 2020. He was imprisoned over his role in protests held a year earlier.

The demonstrations were prompted by plans to allow extradition to mainland China but soon evolved into a wider pro-democracy movement. Wong became a prominent representative of the movement, regularly appearing on news channels. He later pleaded guilty to inciting and organising an unauthorised antigovernment assembly.

‘Endless political persecution’

Governments and rights groups criticised the court’s decision on Thursday.

The United States consulate in Hong Kong said that it “strongly condemns” the additional sentence handed to Wong, and called for his “immediate release”.

“Wong has been unjustly imprisoned since December 2020, demonstrating that Beijing will go to extraordinary lengths to silence those who advocate for fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong,” a consulate spokesperson said in a statement to the AFP news agency.

After his sentencing, Taiwan also criticised the “endless political persecution” of Hong Kong pro-democracy activists.

Beijing and the Hong Kong government use “authoritarian tools” to “fabricate charges … engage in endless political persecution, and suppress the people’s legitimate rights to pursue freedom, democracy, and human rights,” Taiwan’s top China policy body said.

Human Rights Watch denounced the latest charge against Wong. “The harsh sentence on baseless charges against Joshua Wong is cruel and unjust. Young people promoting social change are an asset for any vibrant society, but the Hong Kong government puts them behind bars,” said Elaine Pearson, the group’s Asia director.

Amnesty International also criticised Wong’s additional sentence, saying it was “another grim reminder of how Hong Kong’s National Security Law has become a tool to punish dissent”.

Bengaluru, India — India lifted nearly 500 million out of poverty between 2011 and 2023, with extreme poverty dropping from 27.1 percent to 2.6 percent in the world’s most populous nation during the same period, according to a new report by the World Bank.

The only other parallel in poverty reduction on this scale is China, which lifted more than 800 million people out of extreme poverty — though that was over a period of 40 years.

Yet despite the substantial fall in poverty in India — home to 1.4 billion people — the income and wealth inequality gap has widened significantly since it opened up its economy in the early 1990s.

According to the 2026 World Inequality Report, inequality in India remains among the highest in the world.

We take a look at how India managed to almost eradicate extreme poverty, and at the contrast between that accomplishment and the deep economic inequality that remains in the world’s most populous nation:

What does the World Bank data say?

Based on an extreme poverty threshold of $3 a day, the World Bank said extreme poverty in India declined from 27.1 percent to 2.6 percent between 2011 and 2023.

Extreme poverty is defined as the minimum amount of money needed to afford basic essentials such as food, water, shelter and clothing.

Estimating poverty metrics based on three official household surveys, the Bank also said that an estimated 496 million people have been lifted out of poverty as the share of India’s population living below the lower middle-income poverty threshold of $4.20 a day fell from 57.7 percent to 16.1 percent.

The authors of the report, led by World Bank’s South Asia poverty economist Ayago Wambile, wrote that poverty in India is “projected to continue declining, albeit more gradually with the poverty rate at the $4.20/day line expected to fall from 14.2 percent in 2026 to 12.1 percent by 2028.”

“This progress was mainly driven by strong consumption growth, rising employment, especially among women, and expanded social transfers, including food subsidies,” they added.

How significant is India’s poverty reduction?

India lifting nearly 500 million out of poverty in 12 years has been lauded as “remarkable progress” by the World Bank. It added that the downward trend represents “one of the fastest poverty declines in the world.”

To determine India’s poverty rates, the World Bank used Household Consumption Expenditure Surveys (HCES) which were conducted by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), an Indian government body.

A 2022 report, jointly produced by the World Bank and the Chinese Finance Ministry, said that China had lifted 800 million people out of poverty, but it took 40 years to achieve.

Last month, the World Bank also raised its economic growth forecast for India to 7.1 percent.

In a post on Instagram on Sunday, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi lauded the country’s progress in tackling poverty. “A historic fall in poverty. A generational rise in opportunity,” he said.

Last November, the southern state of Kerala, which has been ruled either by the centrist Congress party or a coalition of communist parties since independence, became the first in the country to officially declare itself free from extreme poverty. Kerala has the best education and health statistics of major Indian states.

Santosh Mehrotra, a development economist formerly in India’s planning commission, and currently a visiting professor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, noted that India is the only low-middle-income country among G20 nations, which are otherwise upper-middle- or high-income nations.

“The absolute number of the poor in our country is still the highest in the world for sheer size of population. So therefore, if we are going to genuinely reduce the incidence of poverty and more importantly, the absolute number of the poor, then it makes a huge difference globally,” he told Al Jazeera.

Coming from the World Bank, the credibility of the analysis that has concluded India’s success in reducing poverty so majorly is also above question, said Surjit Bhalla, economist an a former executive director at the International Monetary Fund. Any data that comes from the World Bank, he said, is the “gold standard”.

He said the institution carries out a poverty analysis for every country using a per capita consumption level that is normalised globally by invoking purchasing power parity.

How did India dramatically cut poverty?

There are no easy answers.

But economists point to a series of factors and programmes that might have contributed to India’s success in pulling record numbers of people out of poverty.

Overall, poverty in India has, however, been declining since the country opened its economy in the early 1990s, when the Congress party was in power, setting the stage for more than three decades of fast economic growth. Successive governments have launched, continued or reworked a series of social welfare schemes that economists say have helped combat poverty.

Prime Minister Modi’s predecessor Manmohan Singh, for example, launched an employment scheme that guaranteed rural jobs for a minimum of 100 days per year.

Since coming to power in 2014, Modi has launched several other welfare schemes, including direct cash transfers, free rations and housing, to tackle poverty. While the Modi government has significantly diluted the rural job guarantee scheme that Singh had launched, the current administration now provides free food grains to about 800 million Indians.

Under Modi, the government has also significantly expanded the construction of toilets, especially in rural India, where open defecation has historically been common in many villages. Access to piped drinking water has risen from 17 percent of rural homes in August 2019 to more than 80 percent, according to government statistics.

“The reduced sickness from accessing safe water may have helped families earn more income,” economists Surjit Bhalla and Karan Bhasin wrote in a research paper on India’s poverty alleviation efforts for the Brookings Institution in March 2024.

Before the latest World Bank report, Bhalla — a former executive director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) — and Bhasin had used Indian consumption data in early 2025 to also conclude that the country was making major gains in ending extreme poverty.

Why some economists are concerned

Despite the decline in poverty, Bhalla and Bhasin pointed in their 2025 paper that free food grains supplied by the Indian government to 800 million people only fulfilled their calorific needs. “More balanced food subsidies that are better targeted to the genuine poor will improve nutritional outcomes and would represent a better approach to food insecurity,” they wrote.

It is also unclear whether continuing to provide free food supplies indefinitely to more than half of the country’s population is sustainable for the government — and whether that programme points to deep economic distress mitigated only by state assistance.

Some economists, like Mehrotra, question why the Indian government no longer determines its own poverty level and its own estimates of the numbers of those below it.

Mehrotra said that since 2014 — when Modi came to power — the Indian government has stopped calculating its own poverty levels, instead relying entirely on World Bank estimates.

“We are a strange country in having adopted an international organisation’s poverty line as our own,” he said.

For a country as large, diverse and complex as India, he argued, a standard set by an international agency alone is not enough to capture shifting economic and consumer patterns. “For example, 10 years back everyone didn’t have phones; today even in rural areas people do. So consumption baskets [used to determine price indices and poverty levels] change over time and hence India should have done its own poverty line,” Mehrotra said.

But Bhalla pushed back against criticism of India’s use of World Bank data.

“The methodology that the World Bank uses and the estimates it comes up with are vetted by every country before the final data is published,” he told Al Jazeera. “So in this case India’s poverty analysis has been gone through by Indian scholars and the government of India. So there is no ideological basis for questioning this data.”

Jayati Ghosh, an economist and professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, however said that India’s healthcare and nutrition indices also remained major causes for concern. The country spends just over 1 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on public healthcare, ranking far behind global peers in per capita health investment and leaving public hospitals chronically underfunded and overburdened. Citizens also end up bearing the brunt of total health expenditures, a financial burden that pushes millions of Indians into poverty or debt every year.

Ghosh pointed out that real wages have stagnated in India. According to the World Bank report, while poverty has declined in India, wage disparities remain. “Median earnings among the top 10 percent of workers were about 13 times those of the bottom 10 percent in 2023,” the report said.

“These are not signs of a dynamic economy with falling poverty,” Ghosh said.

Nitin Kumar Bharti, a lecturer at the University of Western Australia, said that the World Bank’s report is encouraging. But he added that the drop in extreme poverty should not be seen as a mission accomplished, as “233 million people still live below” the $4.20 per day poverty line.

Bharti, who co-authored a study by the World Inequality Lab (WIL) on India’s income and wealth disparities published in 2024, also pointed to uneven growth within the country as a major challenge.

“Even if extreme poverty has declined, the extent of improvement in people’s overall wellbeing remains an important question,” he said.

Why is income inequality growing in India?

Bharti said that inequality is growing because gains from economic growth are distributed unevenly, with those at the top capturing a growing share of national income.

According to the 2026 World Inequality Report, India is among the world’s most unequal countries, with the top 10 percent of earners capturing about 58 percent of national income, while the bottom 50 percent receives only 15 percent.

“This is reinforced by longstanding structural inequalities — the historical caste system, unequal ownership of assets, and decades of inadequate attention to primary education have limited opportunities for disadvantaged groups,” he said.

“Insufficient public investment in quality education and healthcare — both important equalisers — means that family resources continue to shape access to skills, good jobs and economic security.”

Growing income inequality and a lack of job opportunities have triggered discontent among India’s youth, who have staged a series of nationwide protests in recent months.

According to government data released earlier this year, youth unemployment in the country stood at 13.8 percent in April 2025 and rose to 15.2 percent in March 2026.

The State of Working India 2026 report, from the Bengaluru-based Azim Premji University, noted that nearly 40 percent of young graduates aged 15–25 and roughly 20 percent of those aged 25–29 are unemployed. Among those who have a diploma or postgraduate degrees, the unemployment rate has climbed to 29.4 percent.

Does inequality matter if poverty is falling?

Yes, say economists.

“One reason is that the distribution of growth influences how effectively growth improves ordinary households’ lives. For a given level of average income, a more equal distribution generally leaves fewer people below a poverty line,” Bharti said.

“A second concern is inequality of opportunity. With rising inequality, families differ enormously in their ability to pay for education, healthcare, housing, capital to start a business or searching for a better job,” he added.

“A third concern is the concentration of economic and political influence. Large concentrations of wealth can create opportunities for a small group to shape policies and institutions in their favour.”

How can India tackle poverty and income inequality at the same time?

Dipa Sinha, a development economist at Azim Premji University, said that in order to tackle poverty and widespread inequality, India would need to prioritise some redistribution of wealth.

“India talks about poverty eradication only. But government policies need to implement a more progressive taxation policy that actually tackles inequality head-on,” she said.

“The second thing I think is very important is that the government should begin investing in universal public services like health and education. This can reduce both poverty and inequality,” she added.

Bharti said that one strong lesson for India is that sustained poverty reduction requires several policies working together.

He said China offers important lessons in economic transformation and rural income growth, pointing to its success in improving agricultural productivity, accelerating industrialisation, facilitating rural-to-urban migration, and investing heavily in both physical and human capital.

“In contrast, India’s current policy focus is more heavily tilted towards physical infrastructure, often addressing the needs of the top 10 percent rather than the bottom 90 percent,” Bharti said.

“Roads, transport, and basic infrastructure matter because they connect people to economic opportunities. But equally important are good government schools and hospitals that enable people to benefit from these opportunities.”

Bharti suggested that India’s government should pursue poverty reduction and broader economic inclusion together.

“Progressive taxation can help finance these investments while ensuring that the costs are distributed according to the ability to pay,” he added.

FIFA Council members may view documents related to Gianni Infantino’s doomed plan, but only in person in Zurich

FIFA will release details of President Gianni Infantino’s aborted plan to sell off stakes in future World Cups to private investors, but they will not be shared with the public.

Reports in the British media said members of the FIFA Council, the main decision-making body of football’s world governing body, will be given access to “key documents” related to the proposal, named FIFA Forward Enterprise.

However, they can only view them under “strict protocols to preserve confidentiality”, the reports said. Those include the 37 members of the council having to register for an in-person appointment to view selected paperwork in Zurich, Switzerland, in the next two weeks.

The news came out late on Monday, the deadline European football’s governing body, UEFA, had set for FIFA to release details about the $4.2bn scheme and answer questions about how the proposal came about and who approved it before the plans were dropped in July amid a worldwide backlash.

UEFA set the deadline after a tense council meeting at which Infantino apologised for the proposal but provided no details about how the plan was formed. He asked council members to submit their questions in writing.

UEFA is leading attempts to remove Infantino before or at the FIFA presidential election on March 18 in Rabat, Morocco. Infantino, who was elected in 2016, is seeking a fourth term through 2031.

Dhaka, Bangladesh – Laili Begum can no longer afford to keep her two children in school. There are days when the 37-year-old garment worker struggles to put even one proper meal on the table.

An experienced sewing operator at Virtual Bottoms Limited, a ready-made garments factory near Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka, Begum earns around 15,000 taka ($121) a month, which sometimes rises to 18,000–20,000 taka ($145–$161) when she works overtime.

Her 15-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son dropped out of school earlier this year because she could not afford their education.

“We can barely afford one proper meal a day. This morning, we had only puffed rice and Bombay mix [a snack]. There was nothing for lunch. We’ve been going hungry, hoping to have a proper meal tonight. Yesterday was the same. This is how we survive now,” she told Al Jazeera.

“My son is so thin that you can count every rib in his chest. What else can I do?”

Begum is among approximately four million garment factory workers in Bangladesh, half of them women. They are now protesting for better wages.

Bangladesh, the world’s second-largest apparel exporter after China, is a key supplier to global fashion brands such as H&M, Zara, Levi Strauss, Walmart, and Primark. The country’s ready-made garment sector accounts for more ⁠than 80 percent of its export earnings, which touched $39bn last financial year.

Yet, the people sewing those clothes say their pay no longer covers basic living costs.

‘Government only makes promises’

A Muslim-majority South Asian nation of 170 million people, Bangladesh has one of the world’s lowest wages among apparel-producing countries.

Cambodia has a minimum wage of $210 a month for garment workers, Vietnam’s range from $140-$210, while wages at China’s manufacturing hub of Guangdong range between $286 and $378.

That disparity – worsened by rising inflation and the growing cost of living – pushed the workers to strike and hit the streets on Saturday to demand a minimum wage of 30,000 taka ($241), more than double the current wage of 12,500 taka ($102).

On Sunday, Begum joined one such protest in the Jamgora part of the Ashulia industrial area on the outskirts of the capital Dhaka, with the police firing tear gas and stun grenades to disperse the protesters, and arresting dozens of them.

The ⁠Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association said the demonstrations disrupted operations at 529 factories on Sunday and affected nearly a million workers.

Later that day, the government announced the formation of a six-member wage board to review the workers’ demands.

But that did not stop the garment workers from returning to the streets for a third straight day on Monday.

In northern Dhaka’s Gazipur area, the workers blocked the Dhaka-Tangail highway, and vandalised and torched several vehicles, while clashes with police were reported from the neighbouring Mirpur district.

“The government only makes promises,” Begum told Al Jazeera. “They haven’t told us when wages will increase and by how much.”

Inflation eating into wages

Rasel Khan, a 30-year-old garment worker at Ashulia, told Al Jazeera his monthly earnings of 18,000–20,000 taka ($145–$161), including overtime, were no longer enough to support his family, which included his mother and younger brother besides his wife and child.

As living costs soar, he has accumulated a debt of about 100,000 taka ($805) to meet his needs. “It’s impossible to support a family on this income anymore. Prices keep rising, and we have to borrow money just to survive,” he said.

The last revision of the minimum wage in the garment sector took place in December 2023. Since then, prices have continued to climb. Official data put annual inflation at 8.34 percent in September, including 7.22 percent for food and 9.30 percent for non-food expenses.

Begum says she pays 3,500 taka ($28) as rent for a single room shared with her mother and children. Her father, living in their village in the central district of Sirajganj, also depends on her income.

She says she is burning discarded paper and other materials to cook because she is not able to afford a gas cylinder that costs about 2,200 taka ($18).

Zahid Hussain, a former lead economist at the World Bank’s Dhaka office, said persistent inflation over the past five years has sharply eroded the purchasing power of low-paid workers.

“When real income falls, they have to cut their daily living standards,” he told Al Jazeera. “They don’t have any surplus income.”

Hussain said a recent hike in the salary of government employees has had a “demonstration effect” among private-sector workers waiting for a similar relief.

The government’s announcement of a wage board follows an amendment to labour laws to reduce the wage review cycle from five years to three years. The current three-year period ends in December.

Prime Minister Tarique Rahman convened an emergency meeting of top government officials on Sunday, while Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed met the garment factory owners on Monday, assuring them that a new minimum wage would be fixed through negotiations.

Labour Minister Ariful Haque Choudhury meanwhile urged the workers to resume work, saying the wage board would begin its deliberations shortly.

But Babul Akhter, a workers’ representative on the board, called for the new wages to take effect with January 2027 salaries. He also asked the demonstrators to return to work and demanded the release of arrested workers and withdrawal of cases against them.

‘Western brands hold lion’s share’

The impending wage negotiations come at a challenging time for Bangladesh’s garment industry, as manufacturers balance workers’ demands for better wages with rising production costs and intensifying global competition.

Sheikh Hossain Muhammad Mustafiz, an official at Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association and managing director of Cute Dress Industry Ltd, told Al Jazeera that fair wages and employment security must go hand in hand with their ability to compete in the international market.

“Workers deserve wages that support a decent standard of living. However, without fair purchasing prices from international brands, significant wage increases could put pressure on factories and threaten employment,” he said.

Mustafiz emphasised that protecting the workers’ purchasing power amid rising inflation is a responsibility that global brands that buy Bangladeshi garments must share.

“Sustainable wage growth cannot be achieved by manufacturers alone,” he said. “International brands must contribute through fair pricing and responsible purchasing practices to protect both the workers’ livelihoods and the industry’s long-term sustainability.”

Taqbir Huda, a Tech Global Institute senior fellow at the University of Oxford, accused the western brands who buy Bangladeshi garments of not addressing the issue of the workers’ rights.

“One party that could change the situation overnight has held the most extractive and exploitative role: the western buyer brands who hold the lion’s share of the value that is generated by the clothes that these workers produce,” he told Al Jazeera.

Huda said the wage board, which was due this year, was announced only after the workers began their protest.

“History gives very little reason for the workers to believe anything will improve unless they protest,” he said, adding that the formation of the wage board does not meet their demands unless it addresses rising inflation and the cost-of-living crisis.

For Begum, a drawn-out process to decide the new wages means another month of struggle to feed her family.

“Wages must rise, but food prices must also come down.”

Workers in Bangladesh’s largest export sector are demanding a minimum wage increase amid rising inflation.

Hundreds of garment factories in Bangladesh are facing disruptions as worker protests over low pay and the rising cost of living rock the country’s industrial hubs.

There was a heavy police presence in the Mirpur industrial area of Dhaka on Monday and reports of protests taking place for the third day in the Savar, Ashulia and Gazipur areas, Al Jazeera’a Tanvir Chowdhury reported from the capital.

About 500 factories were temporarily shuttered after the protests began on Saturday. Thousands of workers have taken to the streets, facing tear gas and sound grenades from police.

In an attempt to quell the demonstrations, Bangladesh formed a new wage board on Sunday to review the minimum wage for garment workers. Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, meanwhile, held an emergency meeting with his ministers and advisers.

Workers are seeking a minimum monthly wage of 30,000 taka ($242), more than double the current wage of 12,500 taka ($101).

Bangladesh’s garment industry is worth about $38bn and is a key source of export earnings and employment.

But workers’ current wages are “not enough because of the rising cost of living”, Chowdhury said.

Workers “cannot handle the lifestyle with that kind of money, and they want a share” of the multibillion-dollar export industry, he added.

Slowing demand

The protests come as Bangladesh’s garment industry, which competes with Vietnam’s, Cambodia’s and India’s, faces a range of challenges.

Factory owners said the industry is struggling with higher costs, energy market uncertainty during the United States-Israel war on Iran and slowing demand in some export areas.

Still, Bangladesh has “among the lowest garment wages in the world”, said Babul Akhter, general secretary of the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation and a representative for workers on the wage board.

“If factory owners cannot pay workers properly, they should negotiate better prices with international buyers. They cannot build a business on the backs of underpaid workers,” Akhter added.

The president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, Mahmud Hasan Khan, said the government “has already taken a step by forming the wage board”.

“We expect workers to allow the review process to proceed,” he said.

If protests continue throughout Monday, Khan added, “we will have no option but to invoke the ‘no work, no pay’ provision.”

Tens of thousands of volunteers have taken part in building 108 Buddhist stupas in Bhutan’s new “mindfulness” city, as the Himalayan kingdom embarks on an ambitious project to boost economic growth.

The 15-metre-tall (50ft) stupas, sacred Buddhist monuments found across the Himalayas, were installed on Sunday along 12km (7.5 miles) of riverbank near the Indian border, at the site of the future Gelephu Mindfulness City.

More than 40,000 volunteers participated in building the structures as “a physical form of prayer made permanent in stone and earth”, after starting work after midnight, officials said. The number 108 is sacred in Buddhism, widely practised in Bhutan.

About 200,000 people attended the ceremony, or nearly a fourth of the population, officials told the AFP news agency.

“I was worried that raising 108 stupas in a single day might not succeed,” Bhutan’s King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck said in a speech at the ceremony.

“But everything went successfully, and for that, I am truly grateful.”

Bhutanese leaders hope that Gelephu Mindfulness City, conceived by the king and designed by Danish architects, will boost the country’s economy and persuade more young people to stay, attracting investment in sustainable business, green technology, education, tourism and financial services.

Bhutan is facing massive economic challenges, from rising unemployment and falling birth rates to the mass migration of skilled workers.

The city, currently a small town with a population of about 10,000, is in southern Bhutan, along the border with India, about 240km (150 miles) south of Thimphu, the nation’s capital.

The king established the special zone by royal charter in 2024, saying its purpose was to “create a vibrant economic hub”.

The landlocked Himalayan nation, with a population of just under 800,000 and wedged between China and India, is known for its policy of prioritising “Gross National Happiness” alongside economic growth.

“This occasion will be recorded in our history for generations to come,” said Nima Gyeltshen, 65, head of the Organisation for Youth Empowerment, which helps young Bhutanese find work.

Cryptocurrency ambitions

Analysts have questioned whether Bhutan can attract sufficient investment to realise its vision for the new city.

But Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, head of the ports-to-power conglomerate, joined the project as a founding member in January.

The site is set to be connected to India’s rail network in neighbouring Assam, with an international airport slated to open in 2029.

The project is also linked to Bhutan’s cryptocurrency ambitions, with the kingdom mining Bitcoin using surplus hydropower and pledging to use digital assets to support the city’s development.

Bishnu Maya Moktang, a resident who attended Sunday’s ceremony, said she was excited about the upcoming mindfulness city.

“I hope to live long enough to see it,” Moktang, 56, told AFP.

“My parents died young, and they would never see the city. I feel fortunate.”

Thousands have marched through New Delhi demanding the resignation of India’s chief election commissioner over changes to voter lists that opposition parties say favour Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party.

Rahul Gandhi of the Indian National Congress led Sunday’s protest, the latest in more than a month of demonstrations accusing Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of overseeing a biased revision of electoral rolls.

Opposition leaders say the removal of more than 130 million names disproportionately affected Muslims and other minorities, who are less likely to back Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The Election Commission has denied favouring any party and says voters whose names were wrongly deleted can re-register.

The BJP has accused the opposition of undermining democracy by challenging legitimate procedures.

India’s next general election is scheduled for 2029.

Hundreds of police, some carrying batons and shields, are deployed around the rally site.

Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets in India’s capital, New Delhi, to demand the resignation of the election chief over changes to voter lists that opposition parties say favour Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party.

Indian National Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi led Sunday’s demonstration, the latest in more than a month of protests challenging the revision of electoral rolls and the conduct of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

Opposition parties alleged the exercise, which removed more than 130 million names from voter lists, disproportionately affected Muslims and other minorities considered unlikely to support Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The Election Commission has denied favouring any party and said voters whose names were wrongly removed may register again.

The BJP has accused opposition parties of undermining democracy by challenging legitimate electoral procedures. India’s next general election is due in 2029.

Officials ramped up security measures and announced traffic diversions before demonstrators marched from central New Delhi towards the historic Ramlila Maidan ground.

Hundreds of police, some carrying batons and shields, were deployed around the rally site alongside riot-control vehicles. Demonstrators waved Indian and party flags as opposition leaders travelled in an open-top jeep.

Health Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda dismissed the demonstration as a “carefully orchestrated drama”.

“What is unfolding today at Ramlila Maidan is not an act of respect for democracy,” he told the ANI news agency. “It is a calculated conspiracy to plunge the nation into anarchy, all in the name of democracy.”

Opposition parties, student organisations and the youth-led Cockroach Janta Party have staged near-daily demonstrations since late September, calling for Kumar to step down.

The protests began after Kumar’s two deputies raised concerns about revisions to voter lists, registration procedures and digital systems.

Analysts described the demonstrations and growing support for the opposition as Modi’s most serious political crisis since he took office in 2014.

At five wickets down with 125 required off 79 balls, Pakistan were teetering on the edge of yet another batting collapse when Arafat Minhas walked in to bat in the final of the One-Day International (ODI) tri-nation cricket series against Sri Lanka.

An expectant home crowd in Lahore was on tenterhooks as the 21-year-old all-rounder began his batting partnership with Hasan Nawaz under the floodlights of the Gaddafi Stadium on Saturday.

Minhas, who had gone wicketless in Sri Lanka’s innings, showed few signs of the pressure mounting on the young batting pair and began the repair job.

Within a few overs, the run chase swayed back in Pakistan’s favour but the final remained tense.

With the hosts needing 39 runs from 27 balls, Sri Lanka’s Dasun Shanaka bowled a delivery at length, angling the ball into Minhas.

Unnerved by the occasion and his own lack of experience, the batter swung his bat across the line and sent the ball soaring over midwicket for six to ignite the crowd and rekindle lost hope.

Following this defining moment of his innings, Arafat coolly went on to hit four more sixes, finish with 61 runs off 31 balls, help Pakistan clinch the trophy and bag himself the player of the series award.

He ended the series with nine wickets and 149 runs, including two half-centuries.

Commentators on the host broadcast ran out of superlatives for the promising all-rounder, who admitted that he “enjoyed the pressure” of the final run-chase and tried to remain calm.

“The team needed someone to believe that we could achieve the target.”

‘Complete all-rounder’

Before shining with the bat in the final, Arafat produced one of the finest bowling performances of his fledgling international career against England in Rawalpindi on October 10.

After scoring 59 off 58 balls to help Pakistan recover from 81-4 and post 302-9, Minhas took six wickets for 40 runs as England were bowled out for 215, handing Pakistan an 87-run win.

England were at 91 without losing a wicket before Arafat dismantled their batting order.

Among his victims was swashbuckling batter Harry Brook, who was bowled for five by a delivery that turned past his attempted defensive shot and hit the stumps.

The England captain was left stunned at the crease and in the post-match media talk.

“Is he under 21? I didn’t know,” Brook said after the match.

More plaudits poured in as Minhas showed his all-round skills on the field.

“A half-century, six wickets and a run out. Mike Hesson wants all-round cricketers and he’s found one in Arafat Minhas,” former England captain Nasser Hussain said during the broadcast.

The performance made him the third Pakistani to score a half-century and take at least five wickets in a men’s ODI after Shahid Afridi and Abdul Razzaq.

On his ODI debut against Australia in May, Arafat took 5-32, becoming the first Pakistani to claim a five-wicket haul on debut, as well as winning the player of the series award.

“I prefer not to label players as batting or bowling all-rounders,” Minhas later said in an interview with the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). “I’d rather be seen as a complete all-rounder.”

An early foundation

Thirteen years earlier, Minhas dreamed of becoming a fast bowler like every other aspiring Pakistani cricketer.

But the then-eight-year-old was handed a leather cricket ball and instructed to take up left-arm spin by his father, Kashif, who spent years helping Arafat develop the all-round skills that are now helping Pakistan win matches.

Kashif had represented his hometown team, Multan, in under-19 cricket but was forced to give up on his dream – “with a heavy heart” – by his father, who urged him to take over the family’s car showroom business.

Years later, watching his sons play with toy eggs and plastic balls, Kashif saw a spark.

“When I observed them, I saw their playing style wasn’t ordinary; it seemed like a natural gift and a blessing from God,” Kashif told Al Jazeera. “I thought: ‘why not train them for professional cricket’?”

He would go on to buy full kits for his sons, setting them on the path towards professional cricket.

“My father handed me a hard ball when I was about eight or nine and I’ve bowled left-arm spin ever since [but] In tape-ball cricket, I used to bowl fast,” Minhas explained when asked about his control on his bowling variations.

Minhas rapidly progressed through Pakistan’s age-group system, becoming the country’s best under-16 player in his final year before breaking into the under-19 team.

In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown threatened to interrupt his sons’ development, Kashif built a cricket practice facility on the rooftop of his house in Multan.

A net, a mat pitch and floodlights were installed to ensure that “practice wouldn’t stop”.

In 2024, when Pakistan reached the semifinals of the ICC Under-19 World Cup and lost to Australia by one wicket, Minhas played a key role in the team’s progress in the tournament.

Given his standout performances, the young all-rounder’s elevation to the senior team seemed inevitable.

Brothers living a father’s dream

Minhas’s younger brother, Sameer, is a prodigious right-handed opening batter who has also made significant progress.

Last week, he was included in Pakistan’s Test squad for the two-match series against Sri Lanka in November.

Playing his first season of first-class cricket, Sameer scored 405 runs in seven matches, following his own promising spell with Pakistan’s under-19 team. Their youngest brother, Abdullah, is also pursuing cricket as a left-handed batter and leg-spinner.

“To move forward, I’ll improve and put in whatever extra work is required,” Minhas said after the England match. “This isn’t the final goal. The ultimate goal is much further ahead.”

Kashif’s ambition extends beyond one son’s career. He wishes for all three boys to play together for Pakistan and win an international trophy – a dream that would give a new ending to the cricketing journey he had to abandon.

“My ultimate dream is to see all three of my sons play together in the Pakistan playing XI and bring home an ICC trophy for Pakistan. That’s the day my dream will be complete, and that void will truly be filled.”

No injuries reported after glacial lake burst, causing a flash flood and disrupting Bhutan’s Gasa Tshachu hot springs.

A flood caused by the Shintaphu glacial lake bursting its banks has washed away infrastructure at the Gasa Tshachu natural hot springs in the Himalayan ⁠kingdom of Bhutan.

According to state broadcaster BBS on Friday, no injuries or loss of life had been reported from Thursday night’s flash flood.

It added that the extent of the damage was unknown because of “darkness and the strong flow” of floodwaters.

Two Bailey bridges, which are bridges built in portable, prefabricated sections, may also have been washed away, BBS said.

According to Kuensel, Bhutan’s national newspaper, part of the road leading to the village of Laya, where the springs are located, had also been washed away, rendering it impassable. It added that the road has been closed to traffic indefinitely.

Kuensel said that as authorities assess the damage, concerns have emerged about a large artificial lake formed after the flood-affected river channels conjoined following the outburst.

Residents along the Mochhu and Punatsangchhu river valleys were also advised to remain vigilant and avoid riverbanks and flood-prone areas, the report added.

Moreover, in neighbouring India, flood warnings were issued in parts of West Bengal and Assam following the glacial lake outburst, India’s NDTV broadcaster reported.

The hot springs at Gasa Tshachu are a major tourist attraction in the northern part of Bhutan, nestled between India and China.

They were also hit by a flash flood in 2021 when the Mochhu River changed course and swept through the area.

In neighbouring Nepal, a mountainous area about 600km (380 miles) to the west, a flash flood on its border with China in August killed more than 1,500 people and left more than 5,000 missing.